Election results give Democrats the tie-breaking vote, but McConnell is holding out for as much power as possible
The Senate is operating on the organizing resolution from the last Congress, when the GOP was in the majority. Because of that, for instance, confirmation hearings for President Joe Biden’s Cabinet picks this week are being chaired by Republicans.
Bottom line: The fight over the organizing resolution, which appeared to be a temporary disagreement on Wednesday, has reared its head as a full-out legislative crisis that could threaten to stall committee business, cast a shadow over talks about when to start the impeachment trial and constrain the first days of Chuck Schumer’s role as majority leader.
Put simply, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is making a play to exert as much power over the Senate in his new role as possible and Schumer is going to have to make some impossible choices about how to go forward.
The challenges
But Democratic aides point out that putting that down in writing when you are at the very beginning of your new reign in power in the Senate would be unprecedented. It threatens to weaken Schumer with an invigorated base that would see the move as a massive concession in moving ahead with anything resembling a progressive agenda. It would also take a potential and powerful tool off the table if Republicans put up obstacle after obstacle to pass Biden’s agenda over the next two years. As one Democratic Senate aide put it to me: right now Manchin doesn’t support getting rid of the filibuster, but after eight months of obstruction, would that change his mind?
The next several hours are going to be a critical milestone in learning how Schumer and McConnell operate now that their roles have been reversed. In the past, the interactions between the two leaders have been minimal, largely reserved to talks between their staff and passionate, dueling speeches on the Senate floor. As Majority Leader, McConnell operated swiftly and decisively with consultation from his conference, but rarely from the minority.
But Democrats aren’t just going to agree to delay the trial without a laundry list of agreements about how to proceed not just with Biden’s national security nominees, but his Cabinet at large. Will it work? Who knows, but aides say the hope is that the push and pull of multiple, simultaneous and high stakes negotiations between the two leaders will give the two men plenty of areas to horse trade.
What about the article of impeachment
Remember, this is all a negotiation.
Another reminder: McConnell’s offer to Democrats have said nothing about how a trial would be run once it started. All the offer did was suggest how the “pre-trial” process would unfold. That means McConnell’s offer didn’t suggest when the trial would actually start (although it’s customary for it to begin the day after the House managers submit their pre-trial rebuttal). In this case, that would be February 14. The offer also didn’t lay out any promises to dual-track this process and allow for other Senate business to occur in the morning. It didn’t make promises about how long each side would have to present their case or whether to have witnesses. Those are all major, outstanding questions and you can expect they are important issues that Schumer land might try to iron out as part of these talks.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments Friday.
